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The first of the several great 
missionary .societies for the 
training of the Negro race in 
the Southern States through 
schools of every grade and the 
ordinary methods of mission 
work was the American Mis- 
sionary Association. It soon 
became evident to those en- 
gaged in the direction of the 
work that if the Negro people 
were ever to become more than 
an elementary people they must 
be taught how to save them- 
selves. Therefore they must 
look forward to their own 
teachers and their own preach- 
ers, first of all. They must 
also have sufficient education 
to take the hard work and 
homely duties of their life with 
an intelligence which would make their industry both honest and 
earnest, and which would ensure its rewards. In other words, the 
emancipated people needed an education to fit them and to fit their 
condition. 

As one of the prominent centers for a school to do this kind of 
work Talladega was selected. It is a town in the upper part of the 
state of Alabama, among the foothills of the Blue Ridge, noted for its 
picturesque scenery and healthfulness of climate. Conveniently near 
the cotton belt, where the Negro population is densest, if is yet 
far enough removed to entirely escape the malaria and the more in- 
tense heat of the lowlands farther south. Here, two years after the 
close of " the war," the first chartered and the chief school in Alabama 
was opened to the colored people of that state. 

A large and imposing brick building, which had been erected in 
1852-3 as a high school for white boys, standing on a choice elevated 
campus, together with about twenty acres of farm land, were purchased 
in 1867, and school began with one hundred and forty pupils in at- 
tendance, scarcely one of whom could read. 



REV. BENJAMIN MARKLEY NYCE, A.B., 
President-elect of Talladega College. 



TALLADEGA COLLEGE. 

This was thirty-seven years ago. During this time the school has 
developed step by step with the development of the people. Those 
who began the work here proved to be teachers of great faith, willing 
to identify themselves with a service which, not understood, was dis- 
trusted by the intelligent white people, who as yet could not have been 
expected to welcome these unknown mission teachers from the North 
with confidence, nor to look upon their work with cordiality. How- 
ever, one of the most vitalizing forces of this early work was the re- 
ligious zeal and consecration which surrounded it with an atmosphere 
so surcharged with power and love that the teachers thought of little 
else than their mission. They lived with their students, worked for 
salaries which barely sustained them, assumed burdens in and out of 
school hours that only devotion to their Lord and the salvation of His 
needy ones could inspire. The supreme and ultimate purpose which 
called forth this self-sacrificing missionary spirit was the same as that 
of the churches from which these people of great faith came. 

This faith — great and prophetic as it was — could not have forecast 
the Talladega College of to-day. It was then housed in one building, 
erected by slaves as a school for the sons of their masters, and which 
in war times had been converted into a prison for the Federal soldiers. 
The Association had purchased this school-building for the race whose 
labor had reared it, and whose freedom was due to the army which 
furnished the prisoners. The story of this stately building has other 
points of interest. Its slave carpenter, who sawed the first plank and 
chipped the first shaving for the edifice, sorrowing most of all because 
his children should never have a chance for education like the chil- 
dren of his masters, has lived to see three of them take diplomas in 
the young college — each of them teachers in the same institution — who 
pursued advanced studies in a recitation room containing a window 
pane on which in 1862 a Yankee soldier had cut the words, " Prisoners 
of war." Two of these children of the former ''slave carpenter" are 
at the present time teachers in the institution, and a third surrendered 
her teachership only to become the wife of a minister who was trained 
in the same school. 

It is a far cry from that day to the present Talladega College, with 
its twenty buildings clustered about the original campus, its thirty 
professors and instructors, and its annual average attendance of five 
hundred and fifty pupils in its several departments — preparatory, nor- 
mal, collegiate, college, theological — with its industrial departments in 
woodworking, in iron and in printing, and its agricultural, with its 
farm of 800 acres, its machinery, tools and stock. 

Nor will the visitor at Talladega find the same conditions as afore- 



SWAYNE HALL. 



time. Its citizens, who could only have been expected to meet the 
beginnings of the school with distrust and perhaps fears for the out- 
come, and who could not have been other than painfully at variance 
with Northern people and their ideas, are now counted as steadfast and 
gieatly appreciated friends. The failure of the proposed Confederacy 
is seen by them to have been a blessing in disguise. From " the nettle 
danger" the people of this locality certainly have " plucked the flower, 
safety." Whatever others who have not been in contact with the work 
of the American Missionary Association may think about the education 
of the Negro, and what is a good kind of education for him — if any ? — 
the people of Talladega do not hesitate in their cordial opinions and 
commendations of what they see every day. Their testimonials, found- 
ed upon their careful observation of years, and their long experience 
with the faculty and students alike, are unqualified and generous. 
Hon. J. G. Graham, Superintendent of Education in Talladega County, 
writes: " By virtue of my official relations to the students as teachers, 
I have examined many of them and had business transactions with 
them. I find that their training from a moral and intellectual stand- 
point has been excellent. Talladega College is doing a good work for 



TALLADEGA COLLEGE. 

the elevation of the colored race." The editor of the Mountain Home 
voices the common sentiment of the community in the following words : 
"Talladega College is doing a great work for the moral, religious and 
substantial upbuilding of the colored people. For the past fifteen 
years I have been acquainted with the management of the college and 
the classwork done, and I have no hesitancy in saying that it has had 
my approval and co-operation. Its students are polite, genteel and 
stand well among the best people. Talladega College deserves the 
support of the colored people, and the encouragement and sympathy 
of all. . . . It is splendidly conducted, accomplishing a great work, 
fulfilling its mission along lines promotive of the highest harmony be- 
tween the two races, and best calculated for the good of the Negro.' * 
Prof. Andrews writes : " Two professional men of this city, father and 
son, were recently in conversation about the race troubles. The son 
said: 'Father, have you noticed how little there is of it in this and 
adjoining counties?' ' Yes,' was the prompt reply. ' Well, what do 
you suppose can be the reason ? ' The father thought a moment, and, 
as if a new idea had entered his mind, said : ' I declare, I believe it is 
the influence of that old college yonder on the hill.' Thus, almost 
unconsciously, did the native Southerner bear his testimony." 

It is a matter of grateful appreciation on the part of the American 
Missionary Association, as well as on the part of the trustees and fac- 
ulty of Talladega College, that the college can merit and not less can 
receive the cordial appreciation of the people who daily observe its 
methods and their results. We may add that this local sentiment and 
judgment is shared by observant citizens throughout the state. 

The remarkable and altogether happy changes, both in human 
opinions and in social conditions within a single generation, finds illus- 
tration in an incident which includes both of these: When, in 1861, 
the newly organized Confederate States government called for volun- 
teers to aid in maintaining its existence, no more hearty response was 
made than by the pupils of the Boys' High School located on one of 
Talladega's suburban hills. Among those who volunteered was a 
young man, 1 8 years of age, known then as Joe Johnston. He was soon 
sent to the front, and, after serving through the war, he was mustered 
out bearing a Captain's commission. The cause for which he fought 
was lost, the Union of the States was preserved, the slaves were free. 

Years passed, the white boys' High School building had changed 
hands and had become the Swayne Hall of Talladega College for 
Negroes, and just a third of a century after "the surrender" 
Alabama's chief executive was Captain Joseph F. Johnston, Governor 
of the State, who as an attorney and financier had achieved distinction. 



TALLADEGA COLLEGE. 

In 1898 another call for volunteers came to that same school-build- 
ing on one of the hills of Talladega. It was from Governor Johnston, 
and was sent in the name of the Government of the United States to the 
boys of the Negro college, inviting them to enlist in the Third Ala- 
bama regiment, and, if necessary, to fight for the liberty of Cuba. 
Some thirty of them responded, and all who were mustered in brought 
honor to their race and to the country which called them. 

The whirligig of time works wonders and the wonders are not 
exhausted. There will be more of them for those who work on with- 
out ceasing and without becoming discouraged. 

The marvelous growth of the state and the new demand for labor 
is calling the colored man from the plantation to the furnace, and 
Talladega finds itself in the mineral region. Its hillsides are not 
only covered with choice pine, but are also underlaid with the best of 
iron ore, and in this region where limestone, iron and coal jostle 
in the same bed, new industries are springing into existence at the 
magic touch of capital. The college is most happily located with 
these progressive conditions. 

The school for thirty-seven years has both developed the colored 
people and developed with them. In 1868 a church was organized. 
The teaching for preachers at Talladega brought together eighteen 
members but three years out of slavery. Now ten churches in Ala- 
bama, evangelical and intelligent in faith and insisting upon righteous- 




FOSTER HALL. 



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TALLADEGA COLLEGE. 

ness and purity, may be counted as the outgrowth of this first Congre- 
gational church. 

We have accounted so far for the one school building, subse- 
quently named Swayne Hall, after General Wager Swayne, who was 
in command here in 1867 and through whom its purchase was made. 
The next building was at once constructed, a home for the teachers, a 
dormitory for the girls and a general dining room for all. This was 
begun in 1869, and when completed was named Foster Hall after a 
principal contributor to the building fund. This, in 1903, has been 
greatly enlarged so as to double its capacity and is now a tasteful 
structure, sufficient for all present needs. 

In 1873, five years after the Association opened its school at Talla- 
dega, a class of six young men, representing three different denomina- 
tions, were gathered for Biblical study. The next year, by the gift of 
Mr. R. R. Graves, of Brooklyn, a convenient house was secured for 
the residence of the instructor, with room for library and recitations. 
From this beginning has grown a theological department now far- 
reaching in its influence. Its graduates are occupying important 
places in this and other southern states ; and if they are not giants 
measured by an absolute standard, certainly, both in intellectual and 
moral manhood, they are easily more than head and shoulders above 
most of their contemporaries. Not often, it is believed, in the mis- 
sion work of this country, has the seed sown borne a larger harvest 
than here. The Gospel, and not art or mechanics, or even letters, is 
the power of God unto salvation, and the reconstruction which this 
region needs must have the foundation of regeneration. When peo- 
ple are right themselves the conditions about them will be righted. 
For this there must be good ministers, not only men who have good 
feelings and good intentions, but men who have had good, rig- 
orous teaching and training away from superstitions, away from 
wrong ideals and narrow thoughts of life and destiny. They must 
be men who can give reasons for the faith which is in them, men who 
have mental and spiritual power, who can uplift and upbuild others, 
who can lay out their work before them for years to come and 
patiently work while they prayerfully wait for " first, the blade, then 
the ear and after that the full corn in the ear." All honor to the few 
who through great poverty and much self-denial have completed a 
good course of theological study, and to the still larger number who 
have done so much to educate themselves. But there remain a great 
multitude who are preaching to throngs of ignorant people, who 
themselves know scarcely more than the masses to whom they speak.. 
What has been done to educate a few ministers must be done for the 



TALLADEGA COLLEGE. 




many, otherwise who car. 
foresee the danger to our 
civilization. A great duty 
rests upon the nation, and 
especially upon the Chris- 
tian church, a duty as yet 
very imperfectly performed, 
and no man can be found 
who is wise enough to fore- 
cast the peril of its neglect. 
One hundred and 
seventy ministers who 
have received their train- 
ing in the theological de- 
partment at Talladega have 
served in important 
churches from Savannah 
on the Atlantic coast to 
San Francisco on the Pacific 
coast, and from Chicago in 
the West to Corpus Christi 
in the South. All of the 
churches founded by the 
American Missionary Association in Alabama have had pastors from 
Talladega. One has been pastor of an important and very successful 
church in Arkansas for the past twenty years. 

To Prof. Andrews must be accredited most of the theological 
instruction and training of these one hundred and seventy ministers. 
He began his work in 1875 an d will soon complete thirty years of faith 
and loving service. When he began, there was not, as far as was 
known to him, an educated colored minister in Alabama. There were 
many pupils who came to Talladega whose experience was similar to 
that of the one who, in 1892, during his senior college year, used these 
words : 

" I love to contrast my present condition with what it was a few 
years ago, and as I do so I do not forget the American Missionary 
Association, whose workers found me in the lowest depths of ignor- 
ance and helped me up. When liberated, soon after the surrender, I 
could not read a word and did not know a letter. I do not remember 
that I had ever seen the inside of a book of any kind. It was in 
1867 that I learnt the alphabet upon the plantation by the light of pine 
knots. During the years of 1868 and 1869 I was a rag-picker in the 



REV. GEORGE W. ANDREWS, D.D., 

Professor of Theology, Talladega College. 



TALLADEGA COLLEGE. 

streets of Mobile. God has led me on, and now I am a student in 
Talladega College, and expect soon to have finished a course of study 
which will enable me to go forth to lead men to Christ, and to teach 
them better methods of living. I speak of this contrast not boast- 
fully, but humbly and with deep gratitude to God, who took me from 
the woes and degradation of slavery and has given me a double free- 
dom. I am so glad for the schools the American Missionary Associ- 
ation has in the South ; I am so glad for what they have done for me. 
Through one of these schools I was led to Christ. Soon after that I 
felt called to the ministry ; and in Talladega College I am permitted 
to finish a course of study, and to some degree equip myself for the 
work of life. All praise to an organization that seeks for poor, 
ignorant and sinful men, leads them to Christ, instructs them, and 
then sends them out to bless the world." 

The instruction iu the theological course has been thorough, 
the spirit of it has been missionary and evangelistic after the New 
Testament pattern, and the results have been such as to warrant 
a strong appeal for a separate theological building wholly devoted 
to this department. A thoroughly trained ministry is absolutely 
needed, and one would do incalculable service to the cause of Christ 
who would gladden this devoted teacher's heart with a theological 
building suited to this necessary work. Certainly the consecrated 
scholarship, the patient and able fidelity given to preparing students 
to be good ministers of Jesus Christ cannot fail to bring to Dr. 
Andrews the assurance of his Master's words, " Rejoice and be 
exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven." 

In 1 89 1 Rev. Carroll Cutler, D.D., former President of Western 
Reserve College, was elected Professor of Theology, an accession of 
highest value. After the death of Dr. Cutler, in 1894, in 1896 Rev. 
J. M. P. Metcalf, a graduate of Oberlin College and of Union Theo- 
logical Seminary, who had pursued special studies in Berlin, was 
elected to take up the work laid down by Dr. Cutler, and for eight 
years Prof. Metcalf has brought a broad scholarship and a most earn- 
est spirit into the theological studies. Others have taught for periods 
more or less brief, but the department was never stronger or more 
worthy of help than it is to-day. 

Stone Hall, the third brick building, from funds furnished by Mrs. 
Valeria Stone, of Maiden, Mass., was erected in 188 1. It is used for 
a dormitory for young men. It is noteworthy that one who worked 
as a siave mason on the first building in 1852 — now called Swayne 
Hall — was the brick contractor for this building twenty-five years 
later, and also for a dwelling house built the same year, so that Stone 



TALLADEGA COLLEGE. 




STONE HALL. 



Hall is not only a monument for the Christian giver of the funds for 
its construction, but also of the possibilities of the race for which it 
was erected. The builder has now passed into the " temple not made 
with hands," where the recognized distinction is character and not 
color, and where life is in the full and happy freedom of the redeemed 
sons of God. 

In 1879, tne institution, with a look forward to the beginning 
of a four years' college course, elected the Rev. Henry Swift DeForest, 
D.D., with the title of President of Talladega College. Dr. DeForest, 
a graduate of Yale in the class of 1857, and subsequently an in- 
structor at that university, was drafted into the army in the war 
between the North and the South. In his service as a chaplain he made 
his first acquaintance with the South. His entrance upon his work at 
Talladega twelve years later was his second visit. If his welcome 
neither the first time nor the second failed to be impressive to him, 
he yet lived long enough to win the full confidence and hearty regard 
of the people among whom he wrought out his Christian work, and 
in a way that has made his memory in town as well as in college 



TA LLA DEGA COLLEGE. 

both precious and permanent. President DeForest met with a fatal 
accident in 1896, and at his funeral in the college chapel the testi- 
monies of southern pastors and the sympathy of southern people 
caused all connected with the college to feel grateful that they were 
among true friends. 

During Dr. DeForest's administration the regular college course 
was entered upon, though previous to this certain college studies had 
been blended with the theological course. The extent and thorough- 
ness of the present college studies may be better understood by the 
fact that two of its students in the present senior class of Yale Uni- 
versity were admitted to the junior year upon their Talladega diplo- 
mas, that another is now in the junior class there, all of them being 
specially commended for the thoroughness of their scholarship. One 
of these, in less than a year, won the Junior Ten Eyck Prize of over 
$100, open to the entire class. Another graduate of Talladega in the 
Law School took prizes in debate each year, and closed his career 
there at graduation by winning the Townsend Prize of $100 in gold 
over his entire class. Thus Talladega is sending out men who "show 
the mettle of their pasture." In the other departments of the institu- 
tion the instruction is no less thorough, faithful and fruitful. Gradu- 
ates from Talladega are now at w r ork in twenty different states, not 
only missionaries, ministers, teachers, physicians, lawyers, editors, 
bankers and merchants, but also as farmers on their own lands, master 
builders, mechanics, and from the women's departments teachers, 
nurses, dressmakers, and housekeepers in their own homes. In these 
ways Talladega College is taking a large interest in the solution of 




WOODWORKING SHOP. 



TALLADEGA COLLEGE. 

the great industrial, moral, race and national problems awaiting their 
answer in our country. 

This institution — of highest grade for the colored people in the 
state — with a constituency of 600,000 to draw from, certainly has had 
a most interesting history. It carries the banner as being the first 
boarding-school for the freedmen in Alabama and the first in the 
United States to introduce among them industrial training, which has 
always had its place at Talladega. Instruction has been given in 
agriculture, gardening, woodworking (such as cabinet-making and 




COOKING CLASS. 



carpentry with architectural drawing), ironworking, bricklaying, 
brickmaking, printing and cobbling. The girls have been taught 
nursing, domestic science, such as housekeeping, millinery and mak- 
ing of garments and laundering. These studies are obligatory. 

It has come to be conceded now by all worthy educators that ad- 
vanced studies should be within the reach of those who may justly 
and wisely aspire to them. Sneers at the opportunities for higher 
education are seldom heard in these later years ; they proceed now 
only from those whose judgment is not to be considered. Those who 



TALLADEGA COLLEGE. 




DE FOREST MEMORIAL CHAPEL. 



aforetime were wont to antagonize a generous, broad and thorough 
education as against industrial training have come to see all forms of 
education should be open to a people emerging from the conditions 
involved in slavery and moving up into responsible life and duties. 

This has been the theory of the American Missionary Associa- 
tion and of Talladega College from the beginning. Its formula has 
been " study, study; work, work." ''Study is essential; work is 



TALLADEGA COLLEGE. 

essential." Study, work and think. " Work out your own salvation," 
though it be " with fear and trembling," knowing that it is God's will 
for you, and that He " worketh in }'ou to will and to do His good 
pleasure." Thus the spirit of the college stimulates the pupils to 
their utmost endeavor in all grades of study and in all forms of edu- 
cation. From five o'clock in the morning until nine o'clock at night 
the institution is a veritable hive of industry, and we are glad to 
know that results in the products of our schools have justified and do 
justify both our ancient faith and our present philosophy. 

The present value of the property at Talladega College is $300,000. 
Twenty thousand dollars have been invested for the President's chair, 
a beginning towards a full endowment, which, it is hoped, some one 
who may read this sketch may be moved to bestow. There are about 




THE PRESIDENT S HOUSE. 



$10,000 invested for scholarships, eight of which are in aid of theo- 
logical students. These help, but are far from being sufficient. There 
is also the beginning of a worthy endowment for the general pur- 
poses of the college, but nothing for new buildings or the necessary 
and certain demand for growth and development. Let us hope that 
the good Lord will move the hearts of some of his stewards to provide 
for this, and that right early. 

The past and present years have been made memorable in the 
erection and furnishing of a beautiful and commodious college chapel 
as a memorial of Dr. DeForest, the first president. This tasteful 
edifice, now completed, will accommodate nearly 1,000 persons. A 
gem of academic architecture, it is to be dedicated to the service of 



TALLADEGA COLLEGE. 

Almighty God on Easter Sunday, April 3d. It is such a chapel as a 
Christian school like this should have, and the gratitude of the col- 
lege goes out to the Yale classmates of Dr. DeForest and many others 
who together have made the long-cherished wishes of students, teach- 
ers and trustees an accomplished fact. 

The second reason for present rejoicing is in the gift of Mr. Car- 
negie for a college library building. This was largely secured through 
the personal influence of a colored man, Mr. B. F. Stewart, of Nor- 
walk, Ohio, who had become interested in Talladega and in its needs, 
both by personal conversations and correspondence with Dr. Andrews, 
acting president. Here again the white man and the colored man are 




YOUNG WOMEN S CAMPUS, DORMITORY AND CHAPEL. 



found working together for the welfare of the belated race. The 
plans for the construction of the library building are now under con- 
sideration. 

The third occasion for congratulation is the unanimous election 
and acceptance of Rev. Benjamin Markley Nyce as the second presi- 
dent of the college. Mr. Nyce is a graduate of Princeton College and 
McCormick Theological Seminary, with a shining record and an ex- 
ceptional career as a successful and devoted pastor. He enters upon 
his work assuming the duties of the presidency on April 1st. In his 
established ability and consecrated missionary spirit we are confident 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



01 



9 635 579 



TALLADEGA COLLEGE. 



that Talladega will have a noble successor to the service of the strong 
and devoted DeForest. It would be difficult to find a more hopeful 
or a more important work than that upon which President Nyce enters 
in Talladega College ; its past already rich in providential encourage- 
ments and its present with unmeasurable opportunities for uplifting 
a neglected race. 

Dr. Andrews, who has been at the head of the college as acting 
president for the past eight years, in this capacity has added largely 
to his previous influence and usefulness, winning the hearts of the 
students as a wise administrator and a true friend. Having long felt 
the two positions to be a burden from which he desired relief, he greets 
the president-elect with profound satisfaction, leaving the headship 
with the happy consciousness that the college has moved steadily for- 
ward under his guidance. May the blessing of God continue to rest 
upon every department of this Christian college and give to the new 
president joy and success in his administration. 



01 



9 635 579 



TALLADEGA COLLEGE. 



that Talladega will have a noble successor to the service of the strong 
and devoted DeForest. It would be difficult to find a more hopeful 
or a more important work than that upon which President Nyce enters 
in Talladega College ; its past already rich in providential encourage- 
ments and its present with unmeasurable opportunities for uplifting 
a neglected race. 

Dr. Andrews, who has been at the head of the college as acting 
president for the past eight years, in this capacity has added largely 
to his previous influence and usefulness, winning the hearts of the 
students as a wise administrator and a true friend. Having long felt 
the two positions to be a burden from which he desired relief, he greets 
the president-elect with profound satisfaction, leaving the headship 
with the happy consciousness that the college has moved steadily for- 
ward under his guidance. May the blessing of God continue to rest 
upon every department of this Christian college and give to the new 
president joy and success in his administration. 



